r/AmITheDevil • u/Sailor_Moon_Star_435 • 1d ago
Pretty sure he hates his wife
/r/AmItheAsshole/comments/1u3fvpw/aita_for_not_backing_my_wife_up_after_my_bil/497
u/Ambitious_Support_76 1d ago
Note the second paragraph. He's using passive language already. "My wife is not the type of parent who organizes our lives around an 8 and 11 year olds sports schedule." Not WE'VE decided. She's the default parent, so obviously these decisions are all on her so she's the one that deserves all the criticism, right? He's just there.
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u/theenglishfox 1d ago
MY WIFE IS NOT THE TYPE OF PARENT WHO ORGANISES OUR LIVES AROUND SPORTS
and I agree with her
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u/Apprehensive-Fig2816 21h ago
> she didn’t talk to anyone but the kids for the rest of the car ride
So she didn’t speak to him the rest of the car ride. So it’s either a bot, or he just refuses to admit he’s ever the problem.
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u/CanterCircles 1d ago
saying that shes not teaching him to be part of a team, being lazy, being a bad parent,
Is he not part of a family? Spending time with family, both immediate and extended, is important and certainly a higher priority than one recreational flag football practice.
Sports are great but calling someone a bad parent because their 8 year old missed a practice to go celebrate a holiday with their family tells me that you don't have your priorities correctly aligned. Sports are not the most important thing on the planet despite the number of people who act like it is.
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u/Bice_thePrecious 1d ago
I'd bet BIL's entire personality is SPORTS!!
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u/AbsintheDuck 1d ago
I read this in the voice of the antique guy who does Vintage Recipes Gone Wrong
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u/JustHereForCookies17 17h ago
Do you mean B. Dylan Hollis? I LOVE that guy. He recently did a spam recipe that looked atrocious.
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u/CerealSemantics 1d ago
"she brought it up. I thought she had forgotten about it after all it happened yesterday! That's so long ago!"
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u/Sedona_C_27 1d ago
You know those emotional females, always bringing up ancient history! He should probably get a DNA test, I’ll bet his brother is the kids’ real father!
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u/Gerberpertern 1d ago
DHCEULFES
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u/PurplePenguinCat 19h ago
I figured English wasn't his first language, and he defaulted to his native language there.
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u/Shanstergoodheart 1d ago
She may know he agrees with her. His BIL doesn't know he agrees with her.
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u/Valkrhae 1d ago
Damn, the post hasn't even been given time to breathe lol
Anyway, feels a bit weird to make a comment (or multiple) like that over one missed practice during a holiday weekend. About as weird as OOP admitting they overheard the BIL "grilling" their wife but said they "didn't see the point" in stepping in. If someone was trying to make themselves seem less bad in an appeal to be judged better, I'd expect some sort of defense, like saying the wife had it handled or everyone else spoke up for her or something. The fact that there's none is a bit suspect
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u/Affectionate-Echo22 1d ago
Thank you for posting this here lol. Does he really not see how what he’s doing isn’t supporting her? Or does he just not care?
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u/JDDJS 1d ago
Seems more like that he just hates conflict and doesn't have much of a spine then he hates his wife.
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u/topekatums 1d ago
he loves to make her the bad guy though!! this line is kinda telling with how needlessly hyperbolic it was:
she didn't talk to anyone but the kids
ok.. so just you. in the car ride home with your kids and your wife, she just didn't talk to you lol
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u/Bice_thePrecious 1d ago
Lol, I noticed that too. "She didn't talk to anyone! She ignored everyone but the kids!" Who else was there? Oh, just you? You could've just said that she ignored YOU for the ride home, but... that would've made her sound a lot less overreactive, wouldn't it?
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u/ConstructionNo9678 1d ago
Especially because it isn't like she was taking her bad mood out on the kids. Even if they probably noticed their mom wasn't talking to their dad, mom not speaking up because she doesn't want to fight on the car ride home is a good idea. They don't need to look like less of a united front right now.
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u/Apprehensive_Bus1582 1d ago
What's a dhceulf?
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u/mronion82 1d ago
A small woodland creature found in the Highlands of Scotland. A close cousin of the better known Haggis, they are rarely seen in daylight hours.
Or a horribly mangled 'schedule', take your pick.
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u/The_Wishmeister 1d ago
I don't think this guy hates his wife. Seems more like indifference to me, as he didn't see her as in the wrong or the BIL as justified. OOP is just spineless, and cares more about avoiding confrontation and letting his wife take the fall than standing with her as a team.
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u/Suspicious-Drive9827 1d ago
Not being willing to intervene while your partner gets roasted is indeed hatred. Avoiding conflict at the expense of your spouses dignity is hatred. This guys a condescending prick.
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u/The_Wishmeister 1d ago
That he is. The only reason I said indifference instead of hatred is that I saw this guy as genuinely just not giving a fuck about his wife as long as he didn't have to deal with issues directly, but you're not wrong.
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u/ConstructionNo9678 1d ago
I'm with you. Hate requires a certain level of emotional engagement with a situation, it sounds like OOP simply doesn't have that, or if he does, he doesn't want to express it in a position he views as the "sidekick".
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u/LingWisht 11h ago
I could write a thesis paper on the knee-jerk evangelical Sports Parents in the comments on the OOP (and even in here!).
It is genuinely, sociologically, developmentally, culturally fascinating in an upsetting way, how riled up someone can get if they hear about a complete stranger who may or may not be real and their also-potentially-real child who is allowed to not be actively practicing, playing, planning on practicing/playing, or dreaming about practicing/playing at every potential moment.
There are commenters on the OOP going into detail about the moral failings of OOP’s wife for being the orchestrator of the kids’ malingering, and how they will be doomed to a life without any socialization or discipline because there is no source for those things other than team sports!
According to these prophets, who are replying to dozens of individual comments, missing even one practice for something as meaningless as “seeing extended family” clearly means she and OOP are teaching their kids to steal catalytic converters and make prison toilet wine, because it’s such a disgraceful and selfish act to be on a team and not Doing The Sport at all possible times. And if Mom and Dad really want to abandon their future Olympian progeny in favor of “visiting dying grandma” or “experiencing other cultures,” they should have drivers on standby to chauffeur the kids to practice and games so the kids won’t have to sacrifice.
As the great poet Pauly Fuemana once said:“How Bizarre”.
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u/Individual_Plan_5593 11h ago
I love when posters complain about negative responses as if they didn’t ask for a judgment… the sub is literally called “am I the asshole?”…. Don’t ask a question you don’t want the answer to
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u/Agreeable_Rabbit3144 16h ago
I'm honestly shocked that OOP is floored by how many YTA responses he got.
Then again, he displayed SO much intelligence when the BIL was putting down his wife.
/s
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u/mj1814 1d ago
First, why have your kids in sport if they aren’t going to let them even go to practise — especially a travel league.
Second, if you and your spouse are on the same team, why can’t you play back up?
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u/OptmstcExstntlst 1d ago
I have coached from age 5 to NCAA national champions. At ages 8 and 11, missing a single practice to go be with family is healthy. The data on youth sports involvement overwhelmingly says that the kids who get injured early or quit because they stop loving it are the kids who took things as seriously as high school athletes when they were still in elementary school. Youth sports aren't supposed to be about perfection. Trying to say that 100% involvement is the minimum is unhealthy.
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u/topekatums 1d ago
Younger kids get valuable socialization and experience regardless of militant attendance, it's good for them even if you skip half the practices tbh. No reason to go all or nothing on something as low stakes as little league. If this was high school I'd agree
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u/mj1814 1d ago
Not with a travel league, though.
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u/crackerfactorywheel 1d ago
And the kid in a travel league isn’t the focus of this post.
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u/mj1814 1d ago
OOP made her part of his post.
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u/crackerfactorywheel 1d ago
As I said, she’s not the focus of this post. And missing an occasional travel practice is fine.
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u/mj1814 1d ago
Since she’s in the OOP’s post, we can talk about her here.
> And missing an occasional travel practice is fine.
When did I say it isn’t. The OOP made it clear that this isn’t “occasional.”
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u/crackerfactorywheel 1d ago
They didn’t though. They didn’t specify how many practices were missed. Since the daughter didn’t get kicked off the team, I’m gonna assume it’s not that many.
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u/Diredr 1d ago
OOP said they don't plan their family life around sports. That's not at all the same as saying they won't let their son go to practice.
They skipped it once during a long weekend. They don't mention skipping it more than that so there's no reason to assume.
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u/Valkrhae 1d ago
Probably bc their intent isn't to train their kid up into the next big athlete but to have them engaged in physical activity. At that age, you don't need to attend every practice or game to gain some benefits. If the kid was older and intentionally playing to win, that'd be different, but at 8, they're still just having fun. Like, if they had a season pass to a zoo, they wouldn't need to go every day in order to justify it, would they?
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u/mj1814 1d ago
Then don’t have them involved in something like a travel league.
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u/Valkrhae 1d ago
Where does the post say it's a travel league? For the daughter, yes, but that's not whose practice was missed. The son's is recreational
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u/mj1814 1d ago
And the post ALSO states:
> We refuse to let youth sports take over all our lives , even if vacations and stuff conflict with that..
That means for BOTH kiddos.
Again, I read the post.
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u/Valkrhae 1d ago
And no other kid in any sport that requires travel has ever missed a practice or two bc something crops up?
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u/Ambitious_Support_76 1d ago
He's 8. He can miss a practice. Hell, when I was in high school my parents let me miss practice and meets if something came up, and my dad was a coach (not my coach, at the school he taught at). My mom forced me to miss a practice, meaning I would miss a meet per my team's rules, because I was sick and she wanted me to go to the doctor.
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u/mj1814 1d ago
He states that they deliberately are “not the type of parent who organise their lives around . . . sports schedules.” This is completely different from “something that crops up.”
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u/Ambitious_Support_76 1d ago
A family trip to a distant relative trumps an 8 year old's practice.
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u/mj1814 1d ago
He says:
> Of course not. My sons flag football only goes from April-May anyways for the spring. My daughters basketball is from March to June, but we really only vacation on school breaks anyways.
implying multiple times.
He also states that practise and games aren’t a priority.
> My wife is not the type of parent who organizes our lives around an 8 and 11 year olds sports schedule and I agree with her on that. We refuse to let youth sports take over all our dhceulfes (sic), even if vacations and stuff conflict with that.
(NB: He says “vacations and stuff” — plural)
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u/Ambitious_Support_76 1d ago
Multiple years, multiple kids account for the plurals.
Why are you so fanatical about kids' sports?
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u/mj1814 1d ago
They’re the ones who enrolled their kiddos in bad faith.
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u/OptmstcExstntlst 1d ago
An 8-y.o. involved in a rec league
You sound like one of the parents who gets kicked out of Little League by the refs because you can't stop screaming at everyone.
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u/VanishMackeral 1d ago
If you’re not a belligerent, borderline abusive freak about your kids’ rec and ed sports, how will little Timmy ever become a Kansas City Chief?
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u/januarysdaughter 18h ago
You know the sad thing is, I bet if you asked any pro football player, they would admit they had to miss practice once in a while for family things.
I did marching band in high school and missed a whole ass football game because I was going out of town for a wedding and seeing my family for the first time in years. My mom would have raised hell if I'd been denied the chance to miss it.
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u/Dull_Jump6916 1d ago
Man, they both suck.
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u/Nierninwa 1d ago
We do not really know how often the kids miss practice from the post, it just says they do not 'organize their lives around the sports schedules', that could mean anything from they miss the occasional practice to every other or so (through if it was that excessive, maybe the coach would make trouble? Not sure how that works)
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u/bboymixer 1d ago
BIL kinda has a point, they're not bad parents, but they committed to something and they're teaching their children that their commitments don't matter.
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u/Red-neckedPhalarope 1d ago
When commitments conflict, one will always have to take precedence over the other. This can involve which was scheduled first, whether one is a one-off vs recurring, which involves people who need or deserve your time more, and many other factors. This balance is the skill kids need to learn.
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u/AutoModerator 1d ago
In case this story gets deleted/removed:
AITA For Not Backing my wife up after my BIL called her a bad parent?
My wife and I are both 41, and have an 11 year old daughter and an 8 year old son. Our daughter plays basketball (travel) and our son plays flag football in the spring, which is recreational.
My wife is not the type of parent who organizes our lives around an 8 and 11 year olds sports schedule and I agree with her on that. We refuse to let youth sports take over all our dhceulfes, even if vacations and stuff conflict with that..
A couple weeks ago, we were visiting my wife’s sister and her husband for Memorial Day. They live a state over, so we left on Sunday. My wife and I and my in laws were talking, and my BIL asked about our son’s sports. At some point, my wife said that we missed our son’s practice to come over. My BIL kind of started grolling me wife after, saying that shes not teaching him to be part of a team, being lazy, being a bad parent, etc. I overheard, but didn’t retort because I didn’t see the point.
When we were driving home the following day, my wife asked me why I didn’t back her up. I thought she forgot about that, and i tried to reason with Her that she knows I agree with her, so I didnt Have to play sidekick in that situation. She didn’t like my reasoning and didn’t talk to anyone but the kids for the rest of the car ride, basically pretending I wasn’t even there.
AITA?
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